It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Mike Bawden, the PR director of beleaguered fan film Axanar. So I decided to reach out to him and see if he’s excited about all the activity around Axanar at the moment.

Mike came back to me by email yesterday with a few interesting facts… firstly, he’s doing well – staying out of the limelight and working on his own projects. He says his business is going great and that that and his family are the priorities right now. He teased one of his upcoming projects, but said that he’d rather “keep my head down, ignore the distractions and get the projects done” than provide timelines and expectations for getting things on-line.

On the topic of the Alec Peters’ led Axanar, Mike was unashamedly candid – “I haven’t been very deeply involved with that project since the summer of 2017.” Bawden went on to say that he “spent a great deal of time trying to work out things between Rob and him” noting that it wasn’t “a particularly successful venture and, from time to time, I get asked to step back in to see if I can get the two guys to work things out. Who knows where those efforts at diplomacy will lead.”

However the real kicker came in the next paragraph… after stating that he’s busy with his own work and doesn’t have time to “waste on the drama” –

I told Alec [at] the end of last year and sent him an “official” resignation email to make sure there was a record. As of December 31, 2018, I’m not tied to Axanar Productions in any way.

Bawden notes that they still haven’t removed his picture and biography off the website, despite requesting them to do so. It seems Alec is trying to manage Mike’s departure in the same vein as Tony Todd’s – in that instance it took the inquiry from a fan for Alec to admit Todd’s departure several months earlier, despite having used him extensively in marketing materials up until that point.

With another live episode of Axanar Confidential tomorrow – I’ll be very interested to see whether Peters finally comes clean about his main PR man, and whether this is why Jonathan Lane has stepped up his vehement defense of the beleaguered production.

UPDATE 6/2:

Axanar surrogate Jonathan Lane made the following statement on behalf of Axanar:

Mike stopped being heavily involved in 2017 when his business began taking most of his time. He helped Alec since then with advice and small jobs.

Most recently, before bowing out completely last month, he helped prepare the Axanar e-mailing list for transfer from his (Mike’s) account to Alec’s. There’s no hard feelings there (except when it comes to the feud between Alec and Rob–Mike wants them to both shut up about the other and move on).